Some sporting events are merely that while once in a great while one unwinds like a true morality play. William Shakespeare once said, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances;”

Last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am was a morality play of the first order. It had everything; good and evil, protagonist and antagonist, drama, love, loneliness, failure, tragedy and triumph.

Playing the protagonist was the Crown Prince, Phil Mickelson and the antagonist, the once, but fallen King who was looking to regain his crown, Tiger Woods.

The stage was the most glorious theater in all the realm, Pebble Beach Golf Links, a place once ruled supremely by the Former King but one he abdicated many years ago as he went off in search of other kingdoms and other pots of gold.

After having disgraced himself and his kingdom with his wanton carnal desires he continued to seek his former glory and throne without having truly repented. Many of his former subjects cared not for his soul but only hoped to witness some of the amazing feats he had shown them long ago.

Standing in the Former King’s way was his frequent rival the Crown Prince, a man of high achievement himself with immense personal popularity in the Kingdom but unlike the Former King, appreciative of the adulation and quite willing to share that with his subjects.

The Former King continued to be dismissive of his subjects as well as the jugglers and the clowns of his media court despite claims that he had amended his ways.

Early acts in the play were set at Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula which were only used to slowly build the drama until the action returned to center stage at Pebble Beach.

Various pretenders to the throne fiddled about but were merely props and pawns in the game. At the end of the third act a common man named Wi, with no royal blood, rose to the front of those vying for the crown but he had tried and failed may times before and was destined to fail once more in the eyes of the wise old men.

It was the Former King that had come within striking distance and within four blows of Wi. The jesters, jugglers and clowns of the media court were in a tizzy and falling over themselves predicting the Former King would regain his crown the very next day. The Former King appeased the jesters and the clowns by acting regal and trying on his cloak of invincibility as they swooned like they had so many times before on the eve of one of his impending victories.

The Crown Prince, having been out of view for most of the play, suddenly made his appearance at the end of the third act and it was therefore destined that the Crown Prince and the Former King would vie for the crown face to face in the final act.

The Crown Prince acted swiftly drawing first blood in the beginning of the final act by scoring three birdies and an eagle on the outward nine to be five blows better than the scratch man whilst the Former King was two shots worse than the scratch man allowing the Crown Prince to make up seven of the eight blows he had trailed by.

On the inward nine both the Former King and the Crown Prince made bad shots on the par 3-12th hole and the Prince had to play safely upon the putting surface but far away from the target hole. The Former King excited his minions briefly by holing out his ball from the sand bunker thinking he would make up two blows because the Prince could not possibly hole out from where he was.

Ever the unpredictable one, the Crown Prince did indeed hole his ball from greater than ten long paces thus stemming the Former King’s brief momentum.

As the final scenes from the final act played out, the Crown Prince only strutted more royally as the petulant Former King acted the spoiled child he ever has in defeat. It was in the final scene and his defeat a certainty that the ill-tempered Former King showed his true colors.

After reaching upon the green in two blows and the Prince in three, the Former King struck his ball one time but it did not go in the hole. In all the realm, in all the days, a vanquished competitor would finish holing out his ball so the victor may have the final scene to himself. But no, the Former King would not allow that and made the Prince finish first thus grabbing the stage for his meaningless last two blows.

It mattered not to the Crown Prince as he flashed his bright smile to the adoring crowd and then fell into the arms of his beautiful blonde Princess and they walked together through the ocean mists to their blissful union somewhere about the realm.

The Former King skulked and scowled his way into the darkness where his lives out his life these days alone in shame and sorrow.

As the play ends, Shakespeare appears at the edge of the stage and says “But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.”